All posts tagged Shifang

Stanley Lubman, a long-time specialist on Chinese law, is a Distinguished Lecturer in Residence at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and is the author of “Bird in a Cage: Legal Reform in China After Mao,” (Stanford University Press, 1999).

With China’s once-a-decade leadership transition scheduled to get underway in roughly three weeks, pundits and scholars inside China and out have been debating whether the next generation of leaders has what it takes to pursue the political and economic reforms necessary to address what some see as increasingly dangerous level of discontent in society. But if China’s next leaders are genuinely concerned with keeping peace on the streets, there’s a more direct way for them achieve their goals: Find a way to enforce the country’s environmental regulations.

Chinese authorities’ continued failure to control industrial pollution, combined with the growth of a NIMBY mentality among the country’s ever more affluent citizenry, is proving to be an increasingly dangerous combination. At least twice this year, China saw massive environmental protests escalate into violent clashes that made international headlines. Read More »

Stanley Lubman, a long-time specialist on Chinese law, is a Distinguished Lecturer in Residence at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and is the author of “Bird in a Cage: Legal Reform in China After Mao,” (Stanford University Press, 1999).

When massive protests erupted in early July in the city of Shifang in southwestern China’s Sichuan province, one banner spoke volumes about both the increasingly assertive environmental activism movement in China and the youth of many of its participants: “Unite to protect the environment for the next generation.” Read More »

In the heyday of the Occupy movement last year, some Chinese Internet users dismissed as amateurish their U.S. counterparts’ efforts to satirize Lt. Pike, the University of California, Davis police officer who became known across the Internet as Pepper Spraying Cop after blasting a group of seated protesters in the face with a can of pepper spray.

But in the wake of protests that turned violent last week in Shifang, Sichuan, China’s online jesters have adopted similar tactics in mocking one overzealous riot cop whose well-documented assault on protestors has turned him into a symbol of government brutality. Read More »

Russell Leigh Moses is a Beijing-based analyst and professor who writes on Chinese politics. He is writing a book on the changing role of power in the Chinese political system.

It’s not easy being a local government official in China.

News this week of the violent suppression of protests over a planned metals plant in the Sichuan city of Shifang has once again shined a light on how challenged China’s leaders can be when it comes to handling public discontent. Reacting to the now viral images of tear gas and bloodied bystanders that came out of Sichuan on Monday, many critics have justifiably questioned the Communist Party’s ability to maintain credibility with an increasingly plugged-in and rights-conscious populace.

But if the Shifang protests illustrate growing anxiety among China’s masses, they also highlight the equally problematic, if less often discussed, frustrations of the party’s local cadres. Read More »

Police in the southwestern Chinese city of Shifang released 21 people detained during violent environmental protests, as tensions appeared to ebb on Wednesday following a local government pledge to scrap a planned metals plant.

A government statement said a total of 27 people were detained in the protests, and six remained in custody for their part in the demonstrations. Protesters numbered in the thousands on Tuesday, and authorities said in recent days some protesters smashed police vehicles and stormed a government office building. Read More »

Local authorities in a southwestern Chinese city said they have canceled a planned factory following violent protests that have drawn widespread attention in China; China’s government isn’t the only one paying close attention to what the country’s citizens are saying on social media sites; after months on the sidelines as a government campaign succeeded in cooling the property market, some Chinese developers are regaining an appetite for land. Read More »

Have protests in a Chinese city sent up shares of a company that makes the hot stuff in tear gas?

That was the chatter on the Sina Weibo microblogging service on Tuesday as shares of Chenguang Biotech Group Co. leaped 10% on Tuesday, the daily limit for shares traded in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. Chenguang Biotech says on its website that it produces a number of food products, including capsaicin, which it says can be used to make tear gas. Read More »

Expert Insight

New rules on labor negotiations in southern China offer a potential solution to the country's growing problem with labor unrest while at the same time illustrating the difficulty the Communist Party faces in effectively addressing workers’ grievances.

For much of the last half-century, changing China through economic reform seemed to make far better sense than transforming the country through political revolution. Xi Jinping is trying to flip that on its head.

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